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THE 




OF THE 



CITY OF SOMERVILLE 



SAM WALTER FOSS 

Poet, Librarian and 
Friend to Man 



Somerville, Mass. 
1922 



By 
MARY S. WOODMAN 






SAM WALTER FOSS 
Poet, Librarian and Friend to Man. 

Ten years after the death of Sam Walter 
Foss, the Public Library of Somerville, Mass., 
of which he was for thirteen years Librarian, 
is receiving frequent requests for information 
about the life of the man whose poems have 
carried good cheer and good fellowship to 
thousands. In response to these requests the 
Library offers this little sketch of Mr. Foss, 
giving the simple facts of his life, and some 
suggestions of his spirit and character as felt 
by those associated with him in his work. 

Sam Walter Foss was born in Candia, 
N. H., June 19, 1858. He was the son of 
Dyer and Polly (Hardy) Foss, and was 
named for his grandfathers, Sam Hardy and 
Walter Foss. 

The first fourteen years of his life were 
spent in Candia, where he worked on his 
father's farm as soon as he was old enough, 
going to school in the winter. The High 
School at Portsmouth, which he walked three 
miles to attend, and a year at Tilton Semi- 
nary prepared him for Brown University 
which he entered in 1878. 



On leaving college he, with another young 
man took up book canvassing, that traditional 
resort of the poor scholar. The work 
w^as not much to his liking, and always in 
after life he had a fellow - feeling and a 
cheering word for any canvasser that came 
his way. One of the most touching tributes 
after his death was that of a book agent who 
sat in the Library office where he had so often 
brought his wares, and told with tears run- 
ning down his face of Mr. Foss's kindness to 
him. 

The creation, not the purveying, of liter- 
ature was his calling, and the young men 
soon forsook the road for the editorial office. 
They bought the Lynn L^nion, of Lynn, Mass., 
changing the name to the Saturday Union. 
This he edited for several years, and here 
began his reputation as "Funny Man." The 
venture was not a financial success, but 
through its columns he attracted the atten- 
tion of other humorists, and he was soon 
contributing regularly to Tid-bits, Puck, 
Judge, The New York Sun and other New 
York papers. 

In 1887 he came to Boston and became the 
editor of the Yankee Blade, and editorial 
writer for the Boston Globe. Each issue of 
the Yankee Blade contained a poem by him, 
many of which have been gathered togeth- 
er in his published works. In the seven years 
of his editorship the weekly circulation of the 
paper became 130,000. He also wrote regu- 



larly for the Christian Endeavor World and 
the Youth's Companion. 

At the end of this period he gave up edi- 
torial work and devoted his time to writing, 
reading from his own poems, and lecturing. 
This was perhaps the most fruitful period of 
his life. 

Between 1892 and 1907 he published "Back 
Country Poems," "Whiffs from Wild Mead- 
oAvs," "Dreams in Homespun," "Songs of War 
and Peace," and "Songs of the Average Man." 

On settling in Boston he married Miss 
Carrie M. Conant of Providence, R. I., and 
made his home in Somerville. Here were 
born his two children, Saxton Conant and 
Mary Lillian Foss. Seven years after his 
death, Saxton, too, heard the call of "The 
Trumpets," and following the spirit and 
teaching of his father, won glory and death 
on the fields of France. 

In 1898 he became Librarian of the Som- 
erville Public Library, Somerville, Mass., 
which office he held for thirteen years, until 
his death. The Library and the community 
soon felt the impress of his personality and 
his ideals. Progress and development, liber- 
al policy and whole-hearted service marked 
his professional activities; while his genial- 
ity and wide sympathy created an atmosphere 
which Library patrons characterized as home- 
like. 

In December, 1916, nearly five years after 
his death, a bronze memorial tablet was 



placed in the Somerville Public Library. Ii 
consists of a life-size medallion of Mr. Fass, 
with loose sheets of manuscript on each side, 
ane of which contains a verse of "The 
House by the Side of the Road," and the 
other lines from the poet's tribute to Presi- 
dent McKinley. 

"A man who was made of the clay 
And built of the stufif of to-day, 
A man who came up from the throng, 
Came up from the weak and was strong 
And sweet as the breath of the hay." 

Somerville did not confine his activities 
nor his fame. He was a well-known and al- 
ways welcome figure in library circles and 
he was first secretary and then president of 
the Massachusetts Library Club. For several 
months before his death he carried on a 
column in The Christian Science Monitor of 
Boston, called "The Library Alcove," and his 
last contribution, written in the hospital while 
awaiting his operation, was on "Optimism." 

Mr. Foss died Feb. 26, 1911, after two 
years of suffering through which he battled 
bravely, going to his library only two days 
before the operation which failed to save his 
life. 

"Somerville's best loved citizen" was the 
caption in the morning papers. The estimate 
of his character in widelv scattered tributes 
was a variation on the same adjectives — 



sunny, hopeful, helpful, friendly. "I never 
heard him speak a cross word" is the state- 
ment of those who knew him in bus'ness life 
or home. He was essentially a home-lover — 
"A good domestic man" — travelling only for 
his lectures and readings. He never crossed 
the ocean, a fact which disposes of the myth 
of the European origin of "The House by the 
Side of the Road." Indeed, it had no specific 
origin outside of his own friendly spirit and 
a line of his beloved Homer, "He was a 
friend to man, and lived in a house by 
the side of the road." The poem itself, how- 
ever, has travelled the world over, having 
been translated into several languages. 

His universality of spirit made him a be- 
liever in all progressive measures. "I be- 
lieve in woman suffrage," he once said to 
the writer, "because I believe in democracv." 

Mr. Foss was a member of many clubs. At 
college he belonged to the Beta Theta Pi 
fraternity and won the coveted Phi Beta Kap- 
pa key. In later life he joined the Twentieth 
Century, Authors and Economic clubs of 
Boston, the Boston Browning Club, th«} 
Puddingstone Club, the Central Club of Som- 
erville, the Massachusetts Library Club, 
Somerville Sons and Daughters of Nev7 
Hampshire, and was the founder and first 
president of the Candia Club. This last was 
an outgrowth of Old Home week, with a 
branch in Boston, and its crowning glory is 
the name of Sam Walter Foss. 



Mr. Foss's poetry was largely of the "news- 
paper" type. Common sense, optimism, "the 
joy of going on," truth and philosophy often 
hidden in humor and dialect — these are itr 
outstanding characteristics. That there is 
real poetry also becomes more evident at 
every reading, and the groundwork of wide 
knowledge and deep thinking gives his verse 
a staying quality not common to newspaper 
poets. 

"Foss w-rites poems that men cut out and 
carry about in their pockets," writes a West- 
ern editor, "common everyday men, mind 
you, who find in his rhymes something that 
appeals to them powerfully." 

A friend once remonstrated with him for 
"preaching" in his poetry. His answer was, 
"If any of my poetry lives, it will be because 
of that very quality." 

He would have been the last to claim the 
title of a "Great poet," yet who has better 
exemplified the description in the dedicatory 
verse to his "Back Country poems?" 

" 'Tis not the greatest singer 
Who tries the loftiest themes, 
He is the true joy bringer 
Who tells his simplest dreams." 



PD 177 






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